Sergeant Angua and the QQQ
by Octarine Nova
Summary: One shot extended joke about Sergeant Angua of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch related to how with dogs you sometimes have to show them who's dominant. Constructive flames only please-give your reason why you don't like it.


Sergeant Angua of the city of Ankh-Morpork stared at the tracks in the snow. She had been tracking the creators of the tracks through the countryside surrounding the city of Ankh-Morpork for over a week now and all that time she had suspected she wasn't alone in doing so, but this was her first evidence of that. Wolf tracks suddenly branched out of the trees here, and from the look of the way that the tracks became muddled and confused it looked like the wolves had selected this point to attempt to pick off the first straggler.

Normally it would have surprised Angua that wolves would have bothered with a group of heavily armed humans with all the farms in the area, but this particular group of humans had a long history of being cruel to just about everyone in the region, and wolves had long memories. She should know—she was a werewolf.

Not that this would be considered shocking in Discworld, even if werewolves might be rare in Ankh-Morpork. Discworld was a flat world that was carried through space on the backs of four gargantuan pachyderms who in turn stood on the shell of the great turtle A'Tuin who swum through space, and also had the distinction of being the only creature in the universe who knows exactly where he's going. Discworld was a world of magic, a world of trolls and dwarves and werewolves and gargoyles and zombies.

Which explains how it could come about that Angua, a proud member of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch and born werewolf, was stalking a group of criminals who already been tried and executed by a previous generation. This was because, apparently, someone had decided to save money and bury them in the "Second Chance—First Unlife" graveyard, a 'corpse rehabilitation centre' run by zombies. It was obviously only a matter of time before they came back, but then the motto of the Ankh-Morpork government had been "Save Now—Pay Later," which unfortunately meant that it was now her job—and Angua had orders from the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork, Lord Vetinari to bring the group back alive, or no more dead than they already were.

The identity of the group itself was what was problematic. Angua had been able to take down undead criminals before. In fact, if this had been a more typical undead case it would probably have been handled by Constable Reg Shoe, the Watch's resident undead, who was getting quite good at calming down new members of the undead community and keeping them from panicking after being newly animated. Most undead were far calmer, methodical, and less violent than they had been in life (making them, on a whole, better citizens from the point of view of the Watch) and so problems were more often misunderstandings that could be easily resolved. Thus, is was a testament to the bloodthirstiness and savagery of the Qu Qlux Qlan, a fanatical and thoroughly crazy group of racist murderers in life that they still had enough aggression in them to instinctively escape the city, breaking several limbs in the process, and then hide in the countryside.

Their hiding wasn't the problem though. Angua, being a werewolf, had a terrific sense of smell and could easily find them if they hadn't been running nonstop all this time. Even though werewolves were fast, they weren't _that_ fast, and unlike undead, they needed rest. Normally undead couldn't pull off this feat because they would lose pieces of themselves along the way, but the Qu Qlux Qlan had been kept in metal coffins to preserve their chances in their unlife by the caring zombies at "Second Chance—First Unlife." No—the problem was that Angua might not find them first, and if she didn't they would _not_ come get alive. The Qu Qlux Qlan had made a ridiculous number of enemies through intimidation or murder for a group of five. Hopefully these wolves would be the only group able to track down the fugitives.

She could _deal_ with wolves.

But she needed to move faster. She paused, looking around for a convenient tree with a crooked branch.

There was one—a huge oak with a low branch. Satisfied, Angua quickly stripped, shivering, and hung her cloths and boots on the branch. Then—quickly, because multiple regions of her body were going numb—she Changed.

Leaping through the snow about a half hour later, Angua tried to reflect on how difficult it would be to get her clothes back, but it was hard to think about that sort of thing in wolf form. Fortunately, she wouldn't have to stay in this form for too long—the main city gates were actually now quite close by, since the Qu Qlux Qlan had actually made a huge loop and came back to where they'd started. She might not get—what was it that she'd left behind? Not food, obviously, she'd have eaten that…

Her attention was brought back into focus by what she suddenly saw ahead of her in the gap in the trees. A group of people were surrounded by wolves, and were apparently making their last stand. On a small mound of their missing body parts.

It was worse than Angua had expected. There were hundreds of wolves around them, a composite of several dozen packs. The wolves must have collectively set aside their clan differences—which Angua knew only happened around once a century—and all united in killing this group. And the numbers were obviously needed. Several wolves had been killed and dozens more were injuring and limping. Still, they would obviously prevail soon if something wasn't done.

Angua leapt forward. Stop, she snarled.

One of the larger wolves—normally an alpha wolf, but in this case a beta or gamma—turned towards her. Stay out of this, werewolf, he replied. We can smell you from here. This is wolf business. These _men_ killed the pups of all the clans here three years in a row.

I challenge you, Angua said.

The wolves all stopped circling. The zombies in the middle relaxed.

What was that? A huge wolf the size of a horse padded forward.

The wolf had scarring down the left side of his snout that screamed bear. And she was more of a normal wolf size. Angua thought about it. Then she leapt at him.

Several busy seconds later, when she had pinned him to the snow and was using her front paws to push him down, he submitted.

Help me escort them to outside the big-human-place, she growled. The wolves fell into place in a way that made it clear to the zombies to _move_.

Angua glanced around before moving to her rightful location at the front of the ring. Not a wolf was out of place. Sometimes, Angua reflected, you just had to show them who is the alpha.


End file.
